There is as much chance of America getting it as anywhere else that just happens to p1ss some loon off.

Simple fact of the matter, nukes are hard to make, fissile matierial still quite hard to get hold of.

Chemical or bio weapons are probably easier, but in bio the most effective agents are TOO effective and burn out fast (hence why ebola hasnÂ´twiped out the world), and to modify them is also difficult.

Chemical, again pretty difficult in a large area.

Most CBRN type attacks would require a country to aid the group, and the country knows exactly what it would expect in return for such a deal.

Far more effective to use a massive bomb, or up to four airliners......

I think Mumbai shown the way forward a dozen willing martyrs with an AK each an a couple of hundred rounds can bring a metropolis to a standstill. Thats more worrying to me because i can't see plod's tazers out ranging a 7.62

There is as much chance of America getting it as anywhere else that just happens to p1ss some loon off.

Simple fact of the matter, nukes are hard to make, fissile matierial still quite hard to get hold of.

Chemical or bio weapons are probably easier, but in bio the most effective agents are TOO effective and burn out fast (hence why ebola hasnÂ´twiped out the world), and to modify them is also difficult.

Chemical, again pretty difficult in a large area.

Most CBRN type attacks would require a country to aid the group, and the country knows exactly what it would expect in return for such a deal.

Far more effective to use a massive bomb, or up to four airliners......

Click to expand...

Thanks, Choc â no doubt this is just grist to the mill and the tabloids and the usual "sky-is-falling" loons will froth and wax most righteous about islamofascistlefty conspiracies which will exterminate us all unless we bomb everywhere, with everything, right now ...

... but of course, as you say, when you look a bit more coolly at the details, the apocalyptic scaremongering starts to look pretty silly. There was a thread here quite recently referencing a down to earth assessment of the real utility, and dangerousness, of chemical weapons, highlighting how unlikely they would be to cause a holocaust in terrorist hands.

IMHO, the real damage caused by terrorists is in the reaction of their target governments rather than the actual destructive power of their actions.

Thought experiment: Imagine a cheap and easy attack in London. It could be as little as a couple of pounds of ANFO and a few hundred minced up smoke detector cores, set off on the top of a building early one morning. You get a spectacular bang and calls to the Beeb about a "dirty bomb" â and guess what, the authorities do find some minutely radioactive dust floating around. It won't matter that, on proper analysis, the danger was non-existent: government and populace will react to "dirty bomb" and "radioactivity". A combination of panic, ignorance, hysteria, exaggeration, arrse-covering, fear mongering and the usual attempts by every service to use it to boost their budget will shut the city down.

No attack need ever be as genuinely destructive as 9/11 if you can count on governments and the media to be total idiots.

Unfortunately you can take that one to the bank. It's as certain as the fact that I'm a cynical old barsteward.

The anthrax attacks? Is that CBRN enough for everyone? I can't recall many people actually falling ill, but the public was terrified, even though an awful lot of "anthrax" scares turned out to be ground-up aspirin.

Lots of small attacks playing on public fears would be as effective as a major CBRN attack. Scaring people, destabilising the government, the economy and the country are as effective as killing people.

Chemical or bio weapons are probably easier, but in bio the most effective agents are TOO effective and burn out fast (hence why ebola hasnÂ´twiped out the world), and to modify them is also difficult.

....

Click to expand...

But why not bio?
Lassa for example has 20% mortality rate, and by the time authorities will figure out what is killing people... plus all the panic when faced with the unknown... You don't need large quantities of the virus, all you need is few cases and sensationalist media.

Any one remember the attack on the Tokyo underground sometime in the 90s, using Sarin (I think)? There were fatalities but not as many as would have been expected, certainly the perpetrators had hoped for more. Use of chemical weapons would therefore apparently be less effective than "parking" an airliner in the town centre at 500kts.